


Betrayal

by ARMEN15



Category: Das Boot (TV 2018)
Genre: Betrayal, Character Study, F/F, F/M, France (Country), Love Triangles, World War II, hostages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 06:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20792186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARMEN15/pseuds/ARMEN15
Summary: The last night of Season 1, ep  8.Too many things are frantically happening for Simone Strasser.This works belongs to the Angst vs. Fluff summer challenge of the FB Group IL giardino di EFP, written originally in English.





	Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ewinofthelake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinofthelake/gifts).

BETRAYAL 

The arches chase each other along the paved old street, a long sequence, a repetition of doors, shop windows, narrow passages whatever I turn, left or right.  
A maze, a squared labyrinth, the old town.  
I cannot find a way out, each street in the darkness seems the same.  
The faces follow me, haunt me, I need to hide under the arches to avoid the thin rain, sharp like small arrows.  
Cold, sudden seasonal cold and mist from the ocean, insinuating along the streets that come from the harbour.  
Every arch has a hidden spot the few lamps allowed cannot light. War rules, no light for the enemy to discovery the treasured U-boots.  
The faces are waiting there for me and if I run they run behind me.  
Nathalie on the hospital bed, Margot combing her hair, Carla sweating without enough morphine, Hagen pale for the blood loss.  
I’ve betrayed them all and they want vengeance. My destruction, a defeat that I cannot grant so easily, now that Frank is alive.  
There’s silence, La Rochelle keeps its breath, the hostages are free, general relief, civilians are at home tonight. No one wants to cause troubles and wake up the Gestapo, its Alpha is wounded, he can bite hard, consumed by rage as he is.  
I could cry to the moon my despair and no one living will come out of the doors.  
My steps resound on the old stones, here for centuries, laughing at us, silly humans, who believe to step on them, while stones will take their revenge on our graves.  
Carla won’t have a proper burial place, her body lies at the morgue, bloody and cold, would a parent, a sibling, a lover mourn her across the ocean?  
Resistance fighters abandon their lives behind, the cause burns inside them, unstoppable and indomitable, many times I tried to make her leave to save her life.  
No, she’s stubborn, too stubborn for her own good, she doesn’t stop in front of danger, death and pain excite her, her eyes shines,  
Those photos, people killed inside the church, civilians, women, children, faces and voices gone for ever because nothing can stand between Carla and her obsession.  
The smell of sea, sand and seaweeds in low tide, the moonlight enough to see little shining lights in the water; the rain stopped, wind from West took away the clouds. .  
The path to the beach, there I saw the sea for the first time, travelling in his car. A girl more used to the hills and slopes of the Vosges than to this endless water plain. The train journey from Paris was so long it seemed possible to reach the end of the world. North from here, they have a place named Finistere, the end of earth, to reach it and disappear from sight.  
My feet move while my brain plays a confused tune, more a weep than a real lament.  
I could not accept to let the hostages die, the war must end soon, one way or the other, everything is better than this hell.  
Are we becoming ruthless killers?  
Carla put the bombs at the parade, planning to kill many. Hagen every time tried to avoid deaths.  
Carla’s dead, one death for one hundred lives, renunciation for salvation.  
Anna is away, my precious baby, no more orphan, but now deprived of her father, how can I tell Frank what I have done, how can I get Anna back from the hundreds of villages and roads and places she travelled by to go South, her only hope?  
She’s Margot’s baby now and I’m stuck in the West with the risk to be arrested, imprisoned and sent to face the firing squad.  
My life in Hagen’s fingers, a word from his lips means life or death.  
Is he alive still? A man in good shape, his naked body confirmed me, a severe cut in a femoral artery offers few chances to survive – remember medical training, keep the belt tight for five minutes, than untie it, then tighten again - him dead on the kitchen floor plus Margot’s disappearance…  
I am lost.  
He is lost, if he faces the truth and the obsession he has for me.  
I was so close to kill him, fingers on the trigger, target still, perfect distance, becoming what I wanted Carla to stop, betraying everyone and everything.  
I gave Jacqueline mercy in death with a poison, Carla tricked me, it wasn’t a drug, it was the end.  
And I’m responsible for the five killed at noon, a symbolic act of power to show Germans rule over everyone here, they have power of life and death.  
The idea to hide, escape or run is impossible for the sake of Frank, he don’t deserve a traitorous sister. It would be the ultimate betrayal, Frank’s career destroyed, impacts on our family in Alsace.  
No, no, he’s all I got now.  
Steps, drunken soldiers outside a cafè, a pillar offers a hiding place, their loud voices and the smell of wine.  
Memories of the vineyards at home in autumn, the sun on my back and the smell of the grapes ripe and ready for the harvest.  
Our family owned the land for generations, my parents and grandparents and further back tended to the rows of wines that saw two armies back and forth, conquering or surrendering the peaceful river below, the vines didn’t care, their grapes would be good for whatever barrel.  
And so our family served both countries, our father wore a French uniform, his children his former enemy’s one.  
Still French vineyards produce Cremant, Champagne, Bordeaux, for past and present winners, all from the same soil. The people of La Rochelle are French like those of Paris and me. Am I French still? What do I share with them? Are we still a nation or letting our identity slide away? At school, we used to sing the national anthem, to wear cockheads in red white and bule. My uncle from Reims lost his job when he flown the flag on July, 14th.  
Carla wants to transform us in an utopian socialist country that isn’t France, Hagen loves the France that was before, France of books and poems: does he really believe this nation will remain so after five or ten years of occupation? He’s a silly dreamer: a house, a woman, a new life. He showed me the house, four bedrooms, the long dinner table, was he implying a family? I wasn’t a fling, he planned me for life.  
Under the office building, small lights on Gluck’s floor. Am I a fool to pass under it? The risk. Is Hagen luring me here?  
My mistake was letting him get too close, he seemed a polite man, divorcing Charles I said stop, enough, for Charles I wasn’t good in anything: no child in a year of marriage and he found Maria and after two years still no children for them, too. Charles and me in bed were a failure, and in a week I got the best sex of my life, from both: Carla felt the same I felt, Hagen after the first rush spent the night pleasing me.  
I should have refused his invitations, his kindness, tell him a lie, whatever white lie to prevent what we became Head up, back straight, Simone Strasser is not afraid, whether her boss is alive or not.  
I concealed well my dangerous side since that kiss with another girl in high school, the taste of something forbidden and pleasurable at the same time. Marriage by convenience, my father’s pull, a fast divorce and the war set me free: Paris was a million of faces where no one paid attention to a quiet and reserved woman, officers were coming and going, barking orders, pressing for translations, grabbing the reports from the rows of typists in the large staff room. They only wanted to enjoy the city of lights, its attractions, restaurants, clubs, brothels, for every taste and desire.  
I hid myself in the mass until my abilities were noticed and three commands wanted me.  
La Rochelle was Frank, so my choice. Wrong?  
A car stops in front of the gate, the sentinel let a short man pass, he runs up the entrance stairs, is he Duval, to announce Gluck life or death? On which side Hagen’s coin fell? A moment of clarity, the web I fell into, the one I wowed around me opens up and I have to see Frank, before a trap closes on me, his right to know about Anna, her mother and my betrayal.  
I need to be forgiven by him. Carla and Hagen are out of reach.  
Love - unwanted, unplanned, twisted - burned the three of us, killed, wounded, scared our souls.  
Gluck’s lights are turned off, he leaves with the short man - not Duval, no moustaches when he lights a cigarette - they seem normal, orders aren’t shouted, Gluck’s faithful dog at his side, biting his glove. They’re going home, not a list of two hundred people for tonight.  
And if he survives, how can I face tomorrow and the days after?  
Yes I can, head up, back straight, for those who died and those who survived, I can face my destiny.


End file.
